A Paradigm Shift in Singapore?
Like scores of journalists, I attentively listened as Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong delivering his closing remarks, and for the last time answering journalists’ questions. It was the...
View ArticleScience Fiction and Politics
Paul Kantner and Grace Slick of the Jefferson Airplane released an album titled Blows Against the Empire in 1970. Besides the fact that it had an incredible lineup of San Francisco area musicians, it...
View ArticlePlanning for Poverty?
The word from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg at last week’s community meeting in the Bronx was disappointing, to say the least. After promising “good jobs” during a recent campaign, how could a...
View ArticleSaving Grace
Pulling up to the home of Gail and Robert Anderson, a large statute of the Virgin Mary sits in the yard welcoming guests into the home, while protecting the family that lives there. Next to the statute...
View ArticleAdventures in Polarization
All the talk about the extent to which American politics have become “polarized” causes one to ask how serious the phenomenon actually is. How pervasive and deep-seated is it really? Is it as...
View ArticleThe Auld Triangle Goes Jingle Jangle
Obama’s dipped below 50 percent in public approval, which—so the pollsters tell us—is nothing particularly unusual for a new president at this stage of the game. Next week, he’s scheduled to announce...
View ArticleChina Kowtow
President Obama has been under media fire for kowtowing to China on his visit there, specifically for not publicly mentioning the host country’s human rights record. No wonder! Hypocrisy is the favored...
View ArticleMayday, 1960
“Who controls the past, controls the present. Who controls the present, controls the future.” -– George Orwell In an editorial penned on November 20 at Truthout.org, “What Obama Is Up Against,”...
View Article52 Words That Shook Washington
Beirut “It is the right of the Lebanese people, Army and the (Hezbollah led—ed.)Resistance to liberate the Shebaa Farms, the Kfar Shuba Hills and the northern part of the village of Ghajar as well as...
View ArticleThe True Price of Oil
From my window in Alameda overlooking San Francisco Bay, I watch hundreds of men and women in white suits, some with masks, busily uprooting slimy sea plants and gently grabbing birds with feathers...
View ArticleCash for Cheesedogs?
The recession is having one positive effect. The national cholesterol is going down. More than half of Americans have cut back on meat, many becoming “recession-bred flexitarians,” says Gourmet...
View ArticlePost-War Internment Hell for Tamils
“The impunity with which the Sri Lankan government is able to commit these crimes [referring to 2009 war atrocities, including brutal internment of 300,000 Tamils] actually unveils the deeply ingrained...
View ArticleObama as LBJ
With President Obama poised to announce our “new” strategy in Afghanistan next Monday, the courtiers and pundits in Versailles on the Potomac seemed to have reached a consensus that he will opt for an...
View ArticleWhat Father Made Us Sing Before the Turkey
Where have the great hits of Puritan remembrance gone? Thanksgiving is perhaps the most unmusical date in the festival calendar. Even Halloween has its diverse genres of scary music. For many...
View ArticleOvertly Racist Regimes in the 20th Century
In his book “The Souls of Black Folk” in 1903 W.E.B. DuBois stated profoundly that “the problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color-line”. It is perhaps unlikely that DuBois speculated the...
View ArticleThe Autumn of Chinua Achebe
The occasion of a new book by Chinua Achebe—Africa’s most celebrated writer and author of Things Fall Apart, the great African novel—cannot be ignored. It’s been twenty years since his previously...
View ArticleThe Transformers
“You haven’t heard of the Transformers?” asks Sebastian. His height in feet is six, his grade, eight, shoe size, eleven. Like he’s not a transformer himself. “No. What’s the general category?...
View ArticleBlame Larry Summers
Barack Obama’s chief economic advisor, Lawrence Summers, is determined to sabotage a second round of stimulus. And, he’s getting plenty of help, too. Congressional Democrats are dragging their feet...
View ArticleCoal Kills
So you thought smoking cigarettes was bad for your health? Try living next to a coal-fired power plant. That’s the diagnosis Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) relayed to the public in a...
View ArticleThe Timeline for a New Mexican Revolution Comes Due
Mexico City Fact: Every 100 years on the tenth year of the century, Mexico explodes in extravagant social upheaval. In 1810, this distant neighbor nation declared its independence from the Spanish...
View Article